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Heroin regaining popularity in county

Posted April 27, 2016 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler Staff Writer

In a county where methamphetamine tends to make the most headlines of the drug trade, heroin use has started to shoulder its way back to prominence.

"I've been an officer 20 years and I've probably seen an increase in it in the last couple of years," said Randolph County Sheriff Shannon Wolff. "Now, of course, we have numerous overdoses in the county and it seems like it's becoming more widely used."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the amount of deaths related to heroin abuse quadrupled between 2002 and 2013.

During the past decade, 50 percent more men have become addicted to the drug, while 100 percent more women have tried it.

"It's just absolutely steady," said Randolph County State's Attorney Jeremy Walker. "It's very common, it's used all the time by people and I think it relates back to the cheapness of it.

"It's such a cheap high compared to...they can go get a button of heroin for less than a six-pack of beer."

Randolph County Sheriff's Office Det. Donnie Krull spoke to the Herald Tribune about the recent death of a Prairie du Rocher woman who was eight months pregnant.

Both her and her unborn daughter died of a heroin overdose.

"We've had numerous heroin overdoses," Krull said. "Between Perry and Randolph, we get a lot of information. It's very, very difficult investigations, especially when the source may not be in Randolph County."

Krull spoke highly of the city police departments in the region and the job they are doing to try and combat the drug problem.

"The chief in Percy, David 'Levi' Nellis, has stepped up a lot," he said. "Levi has worked hard. Sparta combats the problem as best they can, as does Chester.

"I sat down with (Nellis) and told him what I needed and we have done well in that Percy, Cutler and Willisville area."

During the April 20 Regional Leaders Breakfast in Steeleville, both Wolff and Walker spoke about how prescription drug abuse can lead to the harder drugs, such as heroin.

The substances that encourage the use of heroin are mainly opioid drugs, such as painkillers that doctors prescribe to their patients.

"The predominant portion of our heroin comes from 'the city,'" Walker said. "It comes up from St. Louis and No. 1, users will go up there and buy user amounts and come back and use it.

"Those are typically the people who get caught with it during the traffic stops. There's also suppliers for Randolph County who go up there and buy fairly large quantities of it and bring it out and start peddling throughout the county."

At the leaders' breakfast, Walker also spoke on discussions in the state legislature to make simple drug possession a misdemeanor to reduce prison overcrowding.

"We actually, for the most part, try to give them what's called first offender probation, which is if they do the probation, they can get the felony taken off their record so it isn't going to ruin the rest of their lives," Walker said in an interview with the newspaper earlier this week. "If that person catches another charge, then it becomes close.

"Should they get another help? Once they have two opportunities, at that point, what good are we doing?"

"The frustrating part is just the misery that (drug abuse) puts on people," Walker continued. "You look at people who come in on a Monday morning.

"They get arrested over the weekend and just the way they are strung out, you feel sorry for them. It's the stealing and the theft and all of the other stuff that comes into it."

Another factor of heroin's resurgence is the generation change. In the 1970s, the average heroin user was 28 to 30 years old and lived in urban locations.

Now, data shows the average addict is a white, middle-class teenager.

"Trends come, trends go," Krull said. "Meth ice is becoming one of the cheapest drugs on the street and is becoming highly addicting.

"What I've been told by users is they use heroin to come down from the meth ice."

One of the biggest problems for law enforcement is the ongoing war on drugs is just that - ongoing.

"Some of these people aren't even addicted to the drug themselves," Walker said. "They're smart enough to know they're just businesspeople, so to speak.

"They're capitalizing on other people's' misery, they're capitalizing on people that are ruining their lives."

"We're never going to stop it; if there's people who want it, there's people who are going to sell it," Wolff said. "Here in Randolph County, we need to make it tough for them to sell it. If you're selling it, we're going to do whatever we can to stop it."

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